…while those who committed the crimes they blew the whistle on aren’t?  Former CIA analyst John Kiriakou blew the whistle on wide-spread torture by the U.S. during the Bush years and was sent to prison.  Why weren’t the torturers?  Check out his interview with Sputnik News.

…is the ability to conscript women.

From his essay, Prohibition and Civilization:

“The advocates of prohibition ought to get a clear grasp of the fundamental objection to their theory, and meet it with something more substantial than feeble talk about the influence of “the liquor interests.” Our objection is to Puritanism, with its false social theory taking shape in a civilization that, however well-ordered and economically prosperous, is hideous and suffocating. One can at least speak for oneself: I am an absolute teetotaler, and it would make no difference to me if there were never another drop of liquor in the world; and yet to live under any regime of prohibition that I have so far had opportunity to observe would seem to me an appalling calamity. The ideals and instruments of Puritanism are simply unworthy of a free people, and, being unworthy, are soon found intolerable. Its hatreds, fanaticisms, inaccessibility to ideas; its inflamed and cancerous interest in the personal conduct of others; its hysterical disregard of personal rights; its pure faith in force, and above all, its tyrannical imposition of its own Kultur: these characterize and animate a civilization that the general experience of mankind at once condemns as impossible, and as hateful as it is impossible.”

From his latest Antiwar.com column:

“Sen. Paul began to believe the hype he had generated in the mainstream media, back when he was polling double digits and was effectively the frontrunner. His goose was cooked when President Obama echoed all that “most interesting politician in Washington” hyperbole – it went right to his head. He began to believe that the movement his father had created and so carefully nurtured would follow him anywhere, and that his goal was to straddle the fence between libertarianism and “movement” conservatism. But as Dan McCarthy points out so effectively, there already was a Ted Cruz, who is a much cannier politician than Rand, and all the pilgrimages to Israel and all the meetings with Bill Kristol would never get the neocons off his back. Instead of taking them on, he capitulated to them – and in this election year, weakness is a vote-killer”

He’s got it exactly right, but what should Rand have done, according to Raimondo?  Run a campaign like his father’s, of course, but there’s something more, something that Ron didn’t have, according to Raimondo.  The gift of demagoguery.  Ron didn’t win, and Raimondo believes it was due to his calm, patient explanations, his unwillingness to directly attack his opponents.  Raimondo then gives the example of Trump as the arch-demagogue, who, other qualities aside, does have an exceptional ability to take his highly emotional message straight to the masses:

“Now there is a demagogue in the presidential race, one who fits perfectly into the definition cited above, and we all know who he is. Yet Trump is hated by libertarian intellectuals, as well as by the liberal and conservative elites. This in spite of the fact that he’s stolen a good many elements of the libertarian foreign policy platform. As I’ve pointed out here and here, he alone opposes a new cold war with Russia. Bonnie Kristian says the alleged rise of ISIS somehow derailed Rand Paul’s campaign, and yet Trump – the GOP frontrunner – is telling yuuuuuge audiences that we should let Putin take care of ISIS, and he’s getting yuuuuuge applause. He’s telling us that our shiftless “allies” are taking advantage of us – and isn’t this just a popularized version of the libertarian/anti-interventionist critique of foreign aid? Why, he asks, are we protecting Europe, Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East – while “they’re screwing us over”? He wants out of Europe: forget Ukraine, he says.

Of course, libertarians have been saying this for ages – but The Donald, like the demagogue he is, says it and gets listened to. Is he a consistent anti-interventionist? He’s not a consistent anything, and that’s the problem with many demagogues, and especially Trump – he’s 80 percent emotion and (at best) 20 percent program.”

That’s the trouble.  The most emotional, most passionate of the demagogues tend to not really know much of what they’re speaking about, which is why they don’t speak in specifics.  How would a President Trump really handle Russia, China, or Iran?  He has no record to scrutinize, just his word.  Ron Paul, on the other hand, had a 30-year record of standing alone when necessary to defend liberty.  He didn’t win the election, but he awoken the spirit of liberty in the rising generation in a way that no one else has done in living memory.  I’m not sure I would’ve preferred a more Trumpish Ron Paul, I liked him as he was, and is.

More from Raimondo:

“The real lesson of Rand Paul’s fate is the strategic and tactical incompetence and immaturity of the libertarian movement: their failure to recognize that politics is all about Us versus Them, their inability to understand the key role played by emotion, their blindness when it comes to understanding the dual nature of American nationalism, and the cultural prejudices of the libertarian intelligentsia which make the foregoing errors almost inevitable.”

Emotional appeals do have to happen to capture the imagination and the spirit of liberty.  Trump’s emotionalism, though, is much too vulgar.  Can you imagine a Ron Paul that personally insulted everyone around him?  Who waged a Twitter jihad, night and day, about every single person in the media who criticized him?  It is beneath Paul to act in such a way.  But, having said that, emotional appeals are necessary.  Stirring words about the benefits of liberty and peace keep the flame of liberty alive in the minds of its defenders.  I’m reminded of this quote by Hayek:

“We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage. What we lack is a liberal Utopia, a programme which seems neither a mere defence of things as they are nor a diluted kind of socialism, but a truly liberal radicalism which does not spare the susceptibilities of the mighty (including the trade unions), which is not too severely practical and which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible. . . . Those who have concerned themselves exclusively with what seemed practicable in the existing state of opinion have constantly found that even this has rapidly become politically impossible as the result of changes in a public opinion which they have done nothing to guide. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.”

This is what’s happening in some (how many?) kindergartens across the country.  Kid-friendly military propaganda designed to groom your kids into thinking that joining the military would be an exciting, risk-free career path is being presented to your kids in public schools.  Not too surprising, since state-controlled schools have acted as laboratories for social engineers intent on producing “optimal” citizens.  When you put your kids into a public school, you’re handing their minds over to the State, and due to the endless taxing, spending, and money printing, most families have no choice but to put their kids in these obedience-to-state-authority groupthink hothouses.  That’s by design.  The State doesn’t want children being instructed by anyone other than it.

Kids are treated to this type of military-worshipping propaganda, and when that recruiter calls your house at 7am the moment your kid turns 18, he or she might just say yes to that friendly voice on the phone promising adventure, payment for college, etc.  Military recruiters sell servitude.  They’ll say anything, promise anything, to get you or your impressionable kid to sign up.  But once you’ve signed up, you’re in for life.  It’s like the mafia in that way, only far worse.

There is nothing noble about signing on to an institution that can command you to kill, invade, and occupy based on the whims of a President and his advisers.  The military is not deserving of the lives of your children or grandchildren.

Is the political class “moderate” in their pursuit of a population subjugated by a Prohibition/Surveillance/Domestic Warfare State?  The answer is obvious.  So why should we be “moderate” in our resistance to their efforts?  By “resist” I do NOT mean violence, but by intransigence, an unwillingness to compromise on principle.  The architects of tyranny at home are pursuing their goal with all the zeal of a religious fanatic, and they count on our “moderation” to advance it.

It’s like insisting that the hull of a boat be “moderate” in it’s resistance to water.  It is futile to negotiate with the water spraying in your face.

Tyranny advances as the moderates waffle.

Sheldon Richman’s latest column explores the identical nature of the presidential candidates’ foreign policy views.  And by that he means the ultra-hawkish rhetoric that is blasted by the candidates during debates and speeches.  Why in God’s name is this type of talk about military force so popular?  Anytime a candidate let’s rip their vision for how they’d bomb some foreign country to the Stone Age, the crowd goes berzerk.  Why is that?  And the rare moment a candidate mentions the necessity of peace and the folly of war, the crowd boos.  Why?  It reminds me of a football game.  And it’s no coincidence that football games are an arena for the Police State to put on a show as well.  That vulgar religion called nationalism requires militaristic magniloquence from it’s prospective high priests.

The liberty movement isn’t so fragile that its vitality depended on the poll numbers of Rand Paul.  And it won’t die because he dropped out.  In fact, I doubt much of the liberty movement that grew out of his father’s campaigns paid much attention to Rand.  They’ve been too busy advancing liberty in their own respective states.  Several writers over at Reason appear to have put a bit too much faith and hope into the political chances of Rand Paul.  How else could anyone proclaim that the Libertarian Moment either lived or died based on how popular Rand was?

For those of you who have seen the first episode of the new season of X-Files, there’s a scene between Mulder and conspiracy theorist web host Tad O’Malley where O’Malley mentions a “dirtbox” used by government to listen in on their conversation as a reason for them not to speak until they are inside O’Malley’s limo.  Turns out dirtboxes are a  thing.  The ACLU reports that these dirtboxes are plane-mounted Stingrays that I’ve written about previously.  Local police departments have received these surveillance devices through the Pentagon’s 1033 program, which funnels the weapons of war to law enforcement.  Instead of installing the Stingray at a fixed point, cops can strap to aircraft and just fly around, capturing the private data and conversations of millions of civilians.

An article from Foreign Policy states that NATO is hopelessly outgunned by Russia in the Baltics, and would be overrun in three days if Putin wanted it.  There is a propaganda aspect to the piece though: it appears this is the excuse for beefing up NATO via billions in U.S. tax dollars.  I’ve got a better idea: abolish NATO, which is almost entirely funded by American taxpayers.